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46907. arkymalarky - 2/27/2017 9:12:32 PM Perez will be good for several reasons. First, he's had a lot of experience in the area of civil rights, second, his skill organizing and increasing the efficiency of large unwieldy entities like the labor department, third, being Hispanic, a demographic Democrats need to do a better job of reaching out to, fourth, being connected to Obama and Obama's structure and money connections the man is, after all, still a huge rock star) fifth, as with most of the other top candidates, he understands that you have to start at the most local level. He said what I've been saying which is that you cannot let a position of doggcatcher go without a Democratic candidate running. Every time I think about Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her total neglect of the state and local party it makes me mad. I certainly saw it here, but now my locality has an indivisible group as does Mose's and most other areas in this state. There is no reason Republicans should control the Senate right now. I blame dws for that. What Perez has said, which is what Howard Dean has said, is that this needs to be an all zip code strategy.
I'm actually going to contact the Democratic party and start trying to do some work with them at the local level. I had a lot of experience with the rural organizing I did a few years ago, and There are a few pretty simple techniques that frankly the GOP started using in 08 that has brought them amazing success, and Democrats actually had the potential to maintain and just didn't. They've got to get back to it. The most important thing for everybody to remember is that democracy is not a spectator sport and if people don't get their asses up and get involved they're not going to win, but demographic Trends are on the side of Democrats in the foreseeable future. 46908. judithathome - 2/27/2017 9:21:36 PM Well...evidently you are reading different things about Perez than I...I hope you are right about him. (or rather...correct...heh!) 46909. arkymalarky - 2/27/2017 10:12:55 PM His record is excellent, I don't know where there's anything that contradicts that, so you'd have to point me to it. TPM happens to have a good blog post on the topic right now. Josh Marshall's concluding paragraphs:
"My own small beef in this is that some Ellison supporters, in their need to vindicate their own take on the race, have needed to rebrand Perez as "corporate Democrat" and "establishment shill." You can only sustain this view if you ignore Perez's entire political career and especially the last decade when he held senior positions running the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and then Secretary of Labor.
The Democratic party will have a hard time moving forward if every contest must be reduced and simplified into a replay of the 2016 primary battle." 46910. arkymalarky - 2/27/2017 10:20:06 PM The shift here in Democratic attitudes is unbelievable. The party is trying to talk my brother into running for the state senate, and where he lives there's no way he's going to win, so the idea that they would want to field candidates for every position is prevalent even in the whitest of white reddest of red rural North Arkansas. I think for the first time in a long time the Democratic party understands what its Mission is, and there's really not any daylight between what Ellison and Perez were saying about what needed to be done. The DNC seems to be completely Unified in that regard. I was not for Ellison until he agreed to give up his seat to take the job, but the fact that they're so strongly United and chair and vice-chair sends a clear message to everybody else where they're headed.
And, I also got my first email update from Obama's new organization. It's a scary time but it's an exciting time. We're in a race with the devil and we just have to see who wins when it's all said and done. 46911. arkymalarky - 2/27/2017 10:39:21 PM By the way, it is not gone unnoticed by a lot of non Republicans that Republicans are trying to talk up division between groups of Democrats. In the trump era it's just not going to work. 46912. arkymalarky - 2/28/2017 12:07:07 AM One more point about this shift in the Democratic party's priorities and organizing: this is not about trump, it's about the Republican party and their abrogation not only of American values but of what they claim to be their own Republican values in exchange for pushing through an agenda that's not only harmful to the country and Constitution, but to their base. And their noise about Christian values is just that. It does not match their actions at all. People see that, but they've been deluded into thinking that if they don't get Supreme Court picks things are just going to get worse. The people who will hurt most from GOP policies are people who supported them. Of course they're hurting anyway, and the statistics of rural white people are very serious. That's my demographic, and I see it every day. Rural populations are declining, rural jobs are disappearing, and nothing about rural life is being maintained or improved. Once it becomes clear that new management isn't going to change that trend, they're done. In short, this is no less than a fight for the soul of this country and its values. If Democrats can't shift their message to help desperate people understand that we have to transition the economy where it's going and that we can't dial it or our demographics back to where it was, it's going to be ugly for everybody. 46913. arkymalarky - 2/28/2017 12:09:47 AM And another thing people need to understand is that one of the reasons our deficit went up like it did was because President Obama put the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars on the books. It was a simple and much-needed shift in bookkeeping that never gets mentioned. 46914. arkymalarky - 2/28/2017 6:17:35 AM Rachel Maddow's coverage if the New Yorkers explosive investigative reporting on connections with Russian movers and shakers and trump was fascinating. What deepthroat said still holds: follow the money. That and what President Bush said today, after not having made a comment during Obama's eight years as president or toward his predecessor, were very instructive. I find it interesting Trump pulled Conde Nast in and had a chat with them not too long ago. Apparently he was unpersuasive 46915. judithathome - 2/28/2017 5:59:20 PM I saw that Rachel show last night and thought...man, if EVER there was a time for a nerd CHART on that show, it was THEN! Fascinating stuff!
46916. arkymalarky - 3/1/2017 5:34:52 AM Totally disagree with msnbc's assessment of the democratic response, and frankly kind of offended by it. Not by criticizing it, which they're right to do, but the way they were deriding it and making fun of it. I think it was excellent. I think it was reminder that we share American values and that some things just don't change no matter how different the landscape seems to be. 46917. arkymalarky - 3/1/2017 6:23:45 AM About to gobto bed and thought that saying excellent that wasn't the description, but it served the purpose it was trying to serve. I notice nobody's talking about it, which is not a bad thing. Everybody was talking about Bobby Jindal speech after it was done.
And it's pretty sad that just considering someone not going off the rails as a success this is where we are as a country now. 46918. judithathome - 3/2/2017 12:04:37 AM I listened to Corey Booker after the Trump speech and he seemed far more impressive that what they went with...just sayin'.
And he wasn't on the shows to trash who they went with...was just "responding" to the Trump bullshit very effectively. 46919. arkymalarky - 3/2/2017 12:54:01 AM To keep from losing things like ACA between now and 2018, Dems have to communicate simple, clear, basic principles to the ones they need most to support them with legislators. They need to organize like hell between now and 2018 and do whatever they can to keep from losing the gains that they've made between now and then, and the only way to do that is to try to make sure that middle of the road middle of the country people communicate as much to their senators and representatives. Otherwise this could unravel really fast and it would be impossible to rebuild it. Stop the bleeding and cease losing ground is the most immediate concern of Democrats right now. 46920. arkymalarky - 3/2/2017 1:02:06 AM Iow, Democrats should be responding all over the place, but their formal rebuttal after the president's address is going to have to be to the whole country once a year in a way that appeals to all types. There are certain things dems have accomplished that many people really don't want to lose, whether they realize it or not, If I were talking to independents here I would want somebody like Bashear talking. 46921. judithathome - 3/2/2017 7:10:17 PM Well, I agree with those who are saying it's important to sound more like the younger generation who are going to inherit this mess and Gov. Bashear sounded more like their great grandfather. Heck, he sounded like that to ME, even.
The future of the Dems...and the country...is YOUTH. They're the ones organizing and needing to be enthusiastic and they have their own ideas about how they live and WANT TO live and what they inherit. They are the ones whose communication is all digital...can you honestly SEE Gov. Bashear tweeting from a cell phone and reaching 50,000 people and urging them to meet up somewhere to demonstrate?
The governor isn't going to inspire any young person to run for local office and change things from within...yeah, he was sweet and folksy and aside from that one flub when he said he was a Republican, he delivered a folksy little homily to those who bothered to stick around for it. But, IMO only, he did little to help the cause or future of the Dems....and it hit me as especially egregious after Trump managed to read his "inspiring" drivel without starting a war or crashing the stock market. 46922. judithathome - 3/2/2017 7:11:16 PM Okay..."egregious" was a bit hyperbolic...heh. 46923. arkymalarky - 3/2/2017 7:35:38 PM That depends on what you're doing. To save ACA the youngest are the least effective block. Scared older people exactly like what we are seeing in town halls are the most effective and already have gop legislators very afraid of touching ACA. The Dems must keep that demographic active because they have the most impact on current members of congress.
If they manage to repeal ACA, the US will never get it back, no matter how many seats they win. It's much more effective to use different means of messaging to young people. They don't watch network tv. 46924. winstonsmith - 3/2/2017 7:40:36 PM The Sessions story came with perfect timing on the heels of the Trump speech. Sessions is such a POS. I just love that he has boosted the need for a Russia probe, trampled Trumps relatively good press from the speech, and pretty much, guaranteed that he will have to recuse himself. The hits just keep coming. 46925. arkymalarky - 3/2/2017 7:56:49 PM Totally agree 46926. judithathome - 3/2/2017 8:47:07 PM To save ACA the youngest are the least effective block.
That may well be true. However, THEY are the people we need to save it...how many times have we heard if more young people participated in it, it wouldn't be in the situation it's in now...at risk of being dumped by ignorant fools in bed with the insurance industry.
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