We’ll start elsewhere …
- In spite of some last-minute panic and unnecessary gaffes by the top-line candidate, Virginia had a smashing night for Democrats, crushing the ambitions of racists, neo-Confederates, homophobes, Nazi-sympathizers, xenophobes, and our President — but I repeat myself. Gov.-elect Ralph Northam won 54%-45%; Dems won the LG race and many, many legislative races, such that the Dems may have actually taken the chamber. The first transgender elected candidate at any level — (wrong, Althea Garrison) — beat out an infamous bathroom-bill troglodyte. This is obviously a rebuke to Trump — and affirmation for those many Indivisible-type groups working to organize voters in the wake of Trump. Virginia is fertile ground for them. Winning.
- New Jersey provided a final kiss-off to the contemptuous, imperial governance of Chris Christie. A guy who bullied in the name of stopping bullying has been renounced. I’m sure he’ll find a nice beach to retire to.
- Washington state now is in full Democratic control — a West-Coast trifecta.
- In Boston, Marty Walsh cruises. I refrained from “endorsing” in this race because a.) who cares, and b.) I don’t live there, which means that I don’t have a granular sense of interaction with city government. There were many complaints against Walsh brought up by Tito Jackson’s campaign that seem quite legitimate to me: The Olympics; Grand Prix; the persistence of racism in Boston; fair-to-middling action on bikes and transit; and so forth. It was not a vanity campaign by any stretch. But it says something about the city government — much of which Walsh inherited from Menino, of course — that Boston’s voters felt no particular need to switch out mayors. David Bernstein claims this is actually a fairly weak showing for Walsh — not sure I’d go that far, given the numbers; but he correctly points out that Walsh didn’t have coattails that extended to Steven Passacantilli, for instance, who lost to Lydia Edwards. Segue to …
- Boston’s voters elect a city council that is half women of color. This is a very, very talented bunch. I’m happy for Michelle Wu, who is providing vision in transit and climate adaptation. I met Edwards and she just seems terrific — super-smart, morally centered.Think about this:
I’m incredibly humbled to be re-elected. There was a time when I was a women’s caucus of 1. Now I’ll join 5 other women of color on most diverse City Council in history of Boston. #bospoli
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) November 8, 2017
You could do a lot worse, Boston — a lot worse. Well done.
- Oh, and let’s not forget Maine passing Medicaid expansion by ballot initiative, over the objections of its Governor, the egregious Paul LePage. Health Care for More.
In any event, last night’s results looked a lot more like the diverse, neighborly America we thought we were becoming, not this ugly. greedy, mean-spirited White Riot that was claimed to be resurgent. Constant vigilance indeed.
Please share widely!
The Seattle victory recreates the much-maligned “Blue Wall” — this time, the entire West Coast of the continental United States.
California, Oregon, Washington — all blue. Working together to aggressively lead the fight against climate change (because together they are a major market force). Working together to aggressively lead the fight against bigotry and xenophobia.
Last night demonstrates that America DOES reflect the diverse, neighborly America we are becoming — a vision of America that the Democratic Party has ALWAYS championed.
Stanley Greenberg and the rest of the panic party can suck it:
Can’t get much more wrong than Greenberg, without actually being Trump.
She won VA. Her strategy worked for VA. It didn’t work for the places Greenberg studied which included MI, WI, OH, and PA.
That doesn’t mean we don’t go after moderate suburbanites. We go after both. That demo won’t be enough in OH, MI, WI, or PA. We will need to net at least a third of WWC voters as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton did to win there. That is Greenberg’s entire point. It may be enough to compete in NC and GA which are VA’s in the making, and places we are already doing well like CA, NY, and NJ to maximize the blue walls forming there. Both/and. Northam had a better night than expected, though his tack right at the end of the race may have hurt him as much as it helped.
Pay attention, please… Greenberg specifically called out THIS candidate as using purportedly THE SAME ‘campaign malpractice’ as Hillary Clinton did. THIS CANDIDATE won by 9 points when Greenberg stated he wouldn’t against a SPECIFICALLY Trumpist opponent. Try to keep up, please.
Using exactly Stand Greenbergs own terms the result in Virginia was the opposite of his purported outcome.
Ron Brownstein, who’s an objective political analyst, pointed out the limits to this class inversion strategy. It will likely help us win the House, as I’ve been arguing for about a year. The 23 R Districts Clinton carried will be competitive and may be swept. There’s an additional 30 reach districts like the one Ossoff competed in with a lot of white collar workers.
I also think we should fund candidates like Randy Bryce in Paul Ryan’s district trying to tie Trump to the swamp and push for real blue collar values, instead of the fake ones Trump is peddling. Both/and.
From Brownstein:
Still, relying only on white-collar places would leave Democrats very little margin for error. Because the coalition of transformation is so centralized in the largest urban areas, it is better suited for winning the White House than either the House or the Senate (and even that advantage cracked with Trump’s Electoral College win).
You’re not paying attention, James. Please. Take a deep breath and read.
Here’s the point: If it was up to Stan Greenberg, then Northam would have been OUT as a candidate and it would have been Ed Gillespie channeling Trump versus J. Random Democrat attempting to also channel Trump.
Here’s the most important point: In his zeal to bash Hillary Clinton, Stan Greenberg’s dismissing those in VA who LIKED Hillary Clinton enough to give her a victory there. It’s not just about the geography where Greenbergs ‘strategy’ may work… it’s the blind dismissal of the legitimate pro-Hillary votes — and Northam would have been a casualty in that battle if Greenberg had anything to do about it — in favor of this strategy that is the problem. Every move you make towards the Trump base alienates the very large Hillary base.
@ “relying only on white-collar places”:
I haven’t heard anybody propose this, and I don’t think that’s the issue we’ve been battling about here.
I think the issue is how we go after blue-collar places.
Some loudly advocate that we after white working-class males. I think this election demonstrated that this a loser.
I think a better strategy is to CONTINUE to target “women, minorities, and gay and transgender people“.
YES, we pitch a battle against wealth and income concentration — because those communities have been feeling the most pain from that issue for DECADES.
YES, we continue to promote equal-pay-for-equal-work legislation because THOSE communities are feeling the most pain from gender and race gaps in hiring.
YES, we continue to promote making college and skill-training available to those who are prevented from that by the significant cost barriers that currently exist because THOSE communities are feeling the most pain from the exploding cost of post-secondary education.
YES, we continue to show solidarity with efforts to remove monuments to oppression, to stop out-of-control police violence, and to support movements like BLM because THOSE communities have been the target of these abuses for an eternity.
We must woo blue caller voters into our movement. We must mobilize blue collar voters to register and then show up and VOTE.
We MUST reject the failed (and racist and sexist) premise that angry white working-class men are the only blue-collar voters worth paying attention to.
We must simultaneously embrace change and reject hate.
We lost white women by nearly 5 points in 2016 while Obama comfortably carried that demo. People of color stayed home and the Clinton campaign actually told black organizers in Detroit and Milwaukee not to waste time and resources campaigning in their communities. This is why we need a real grassroots DNC.
Bernie and Hillary both sucked on race and organizing voters of color. While Bernie listened and tried to make up for lost ground, he and Joe Biden still say cringeworthy things on race. Almost none of my students liked Clinton, so we are seeing a generational changing of the guard. They are more militant and hungrier for police reform and a Democratic Party that gives a damn about them.
I’d also point to newly elected black mayors winning in the Deep South on far left platforms-without the help of Sanders or the DNC. So there’s an organic movement outside of the usual party divide we have to channel.
Ditto Latino organizing. Nevada has strong Latino turnout and it’s because of unions. Boston has strong Latino turnout and it’s because of unions. Investing in unions is also something neither wing of the party talks about. Maybe we should invest in that in Texas instead of top down campaigns led by outside interest groups like Wendy Davis’. Maybe we should organize Latinos in GA instead of blowing 30 million on a connected white kid my age who didn’t live in the district and didn’t know what he stood for. That 30 million would go a lot longer hiring Spanish speaking canvassers to bring Decatur and other Latinizing communities into the blue team. Ditto NC and SC and its agricultural workforce.
I don’t view this as a Bernie v Hillary fight. I view this as a grassroots campaign vs media campaign. The doorknockers of all persuasions won in VA. And we saw an upballot effect from local candidates like Danica Roem helping the top of the ticket.
One thing I always agree with you on is that this is a multidecade fight and a culture war for the soul of America. And we will suffer a lot of setbacks on the way there. But we should find Jesus on squaring economic and social justice and find our inner Paul to evangelize every community we have neglected. Most of them ain’t white or male.
It’s also already been a multidecade fight that liberals didn’t realize was engaged until it was too late. I am currently reading Democracy in Chains, which chronicles the methodical strategy of the Right going back to the 1950s.
Seems like lesson 1 is that good candidates do better among all voters, and bad candidates don’t. While HRC may have been the most qualified, most experienced, etc., turns out she just wasn’t a good candidate. That is probably due, a lot, to sexism in the electorate, but that fact and a dollar will get you on the subway.
I think I agree with petr that that writer was a little embarrassingly panicky, specifically because Virginia has northern virginia, while those rust-belt states have nothing comparable, while also agreeing with you that the difference might be great enough not to translate back.
Unfortunately, this kind of reporting makes me ever more pessimistic that the key voters in those rust belt states are reachable in any way. They know that Trump is a liar, and will do nothing. They know that EVERY SINGLE bit of the “reaching out to the forgotten working class is 100% bullshit– they admit that there isn’t going to be a wall, no one is going to re-open the factory or the coal mine– with the single and sole exception of the overt racism.
It’s important to note that DSA endorsed candidate just swept county councils in coal country outside of Pittsburgh. They are gearing up to compete for state house seats as well which would help undo the PA gerrymandering.
Delaware County outside Philly went hard for Democrats, and it narrowly went for Trump in the fall. So centrist progressives are winning back the suburbs while socialists are winning back coal country. Both/and.
Hillary Clinton did have her shortcomings as a candidate, and is yet another example of the curse of democracy being that running for office and holding the office are two very different skill sets. This is why I try to figure out early who will be the best President based on qualifications and largely ignore the ups and downs of the campaign.
Greenberg helped elect the last two Democratic presidents and would’ve helped Hillary carry MI and WI if she had the good sense to hire him (and bother campaigning there). He’s married to one of our most progressive feminists in Congress. Comparing him to Trump is a massively insulting and degrading attack
And speaking of the diverse, neighborly America we are, the prize for graciousness toward a defeated opponent goes to the victorious transgender candidate from Virginia who, when asked to comment on the troglodyte she beat, said “I don’t attack my constituents. Bob is my constituent now.”
(Graciousness with maybe just a touch of the shiv.)
Somerville also had a transformative night. Four incumbent Aldermen lost reelection. During my 13 years in the city, there was rarely an election where even one incumbent lost.
I don’t know Somerville politics from anything, but was that attributable to anything specific?
If you read the Boston Globe, it was because of Bernie Sanders, but most people on the ground would refute that. There was a lot of frustration with the affordable housing waiver that was given to an Assembly Square development and with the rising cost of living in Somerville more broadly. Certainly Our Revolution Somerville worked hard for the candidates they were endorsing, but that was more a symptom of our desire for change than the cause.
One of the newcomers, for Alderman at Large, is Stephanie Hirsch (my chosen candidate). As a city hall staffer, Ms. Hirsch created several of the programs that make Somerville such a great place to live (“Somerstat”, “Resistat”, “311”) and she’s made enormous contributions to Somerville public schools.
She conducted a masterful campaign. Her mailers were informative and frequent. She made herself far more available to any who were interested than any other candidate I can remember for any office. Her yard signs were plentiful and tasteful.
My support and enthusiasm for Ms. Hirsch has everything to do with who she is, what she’s done, and how well she campaigned. She did say and write, early on, that she was motivated to run by the election of Donald Trump.
I’ve seen no evidence, at all, that Bernie Sanders had anything to do with the election of Stephanie Hirsch. I can’t speak to any of the other candidates.
I will say that Payton Corbett, who ran as “the working-class candidate” and who distinguished himself by distributing a trashy and hostile attack-piece against Joe Curtatone, lost by a landslide. Mr. Corbett clearly tried to ride the populist wave and was crushed.
I think the Boston Globe probably just did its usual Boston Globe thing. Sounds like somebody made up a story for a deadline without ever bothering to actually visit Somerville and actually talk to anybody.
I look forward to seeing how these new faces change life in Somerville.
I’ll never understand the ire in some Somerville circles toward Joe Curtatone. He’s an outspoken progressive. Probably the best white politician in the state when it comes to defending black lives. People attacking him on housing don’t have a clue on how zoning laws work or that other communities aren’t building their fair share of housing driving up costs in inner belt communities. The arguments against him in housing are identical to the ones peddled by the CRA slate in Cambridge.
Cambridge and Somerville are built out, transit oriented communities which are always going to be expensive in a market rate housing economy. Make places like Belmont and Arlington build some high rises and you may start to solve the problem.
To the extent that public policy is involved (tax credits, subsidies, transit, regional planning, etc), I suggest that communities along the blue line from East Boston to Wonderland should come before Belmont and Arlington. Belmont and Arlington are already expensive and prosperous, and each has basically said “no” to public transportation.
Revere and East Boston are struggling communities that already have Blue Line service. The contemplated Blue Line Extension to Lynn will jump-start the whole north shore.
There is a LOT of real estate along the Blue Line waiting to be to turned into affordable transit-accessible housing.